This column will change your life + Horror | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/thiscolumnwillchangeyourlife+film/horror
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This column will change your life: A frightening prospect | Oliver Burkemanhttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/change-your-life-frightening-films-books
Why is it that we enjoy being scared half to death by films and books?<p>One wild and windswept recent afternoon – I know it&nbsp;should have been late at night, but it wasn't – I finally got around to watching <a href="http://www.paranormalmovie.com/" title="">Paranormal Activity</a>, the ultra-low-budget horror film that became an underground success thanks to the curious pleasure so many people take in being scared half to death. (Don't watch it twice, or you may get scared fully to death.) Even at 3.30pm, when watched alone at home, it's an extremely creepy movie, documenting the haunting of a couple whose apartment becomes the target of a&nbsp;vengeful force intent on driving them to the edge of sanity with some old-school ghostly techniques: doors that suddenly slam, TVs that switch themselves on, scrapings and groanings with no discernible source. At one particularly tense point, the fridge in my kitchen started to buzz; I wheeled around, saw my own reflection in some mirrored cupboard doors and nearly yelled out loud – which isn't, I should clarify, how I&nbsp;normally respond when looking in&nbsp;the mirror. In short, I enjoyed myself immensely.</p><p>But why? This mysterious truth – that so many of us seem to find fear entertaining so long as it's fictional – has bothered philosophers and psychologists for long enough that it has a name: the "<a href="http://www.swedish.org/17032.cfm" title="">horror paradox</a>". (The more general mystery of "pleasurable negative emotions" goes back to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="">Aristotle</a>.) Encountering <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=285ImXTYdsg" title="">a chainsaw-wielding maniac</a> in fiction is obviously less traumatising than meeting one at the bus stop. But why should it be actively fun? One theory is that we simply feel a rush of relief when the horror ends; another is that the emotion in&nbsp;question isn't really fear, just excitement; a third is that we secretly love violent mayhem, but feel able to admit it only when it's make-believe. There's an evolutionary speculation, too: that we've developed to find blood and gore hypnotising – the rubbernecking effect – so as to ensure that we carefully study potential threats to survival. But there's little research to bolster these, and none quite captures the thrilling blend of fear plus pleasure that a good scary film evokes.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/change-your-life-frightening-films-books">Continue reading...</a>PsychologyFilmHorrorPhilosophyPhilosophyLife and styleHealth & wellbeingSat, 13 Mar 2010 00:36:20 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/change-your-life-frightening-films-booksPhotograph: Bobby Yip/ReutersThere must be more scary things than this... Photograph: Bobby Yip/ReutersPhotograph: Bobby Yip/ReutersThere must be more scary things than this... Photograph: Bobby Yip/ReutersOliver Burkeman2010-03-13T00:36:20Z